


A Sid/Geno Summer of Like Not!Fic [and podfic]

by dancinbutterfly, knight_tracer



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amsterdam, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Bedroom Sex, Bedrooms, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daring escapes via Finland, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Geno has to fulfill his KHL contract, Happy Ending, Hockey, Hostels are awesome, Kissing, Knight_Tracer Made Me Do It!!, Lost Love, M/M, Podfic, Podfic Length: 30-45 Minutes, Recreational Drug Use, Rediscovery, Separations, Sexual Content, Suck it up and enjoy your life Sid, hockey inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:06:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story in a universe slightly to the left of ours where two boys who happen to play hockey fell in love while taking the summer of 2005 off in Amsterdam. Oh yeah, it's also about how they find each other again when one of them is trapped in Russia and the other is busy being a hockey-bot. (This is all knight_tracer's fault - that's why there's a podfic inside)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sid/Geno Summer of Like Not!Fic [and podfic]

**Author's Note:**

> > As I said before, ALL KNIGHT_TRACERS FAULT! I wouldnt even be in this freaking fandom if she didnt record all that awesome podfic. *shakes fist* So she egged me on to write this then recorded it. Summer of Like is the original name of the song Bang the Doldrums and is most often used in fandom as to described Warped Tour in the summer of '05 over in Bandom RPF. Long story short - it was summer, it was slashy, then it ended. Since this is Sid and Geno's own version of the Summer of Like, the songs on the podfic are from the album that summer inspired - Bang the Doldrums is the intro and Thriller is the outro - both by Fall Out Boy.

Podfic Length: 35:27

Podfic Links: [mp3](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/A%20Sid_Geno%20Summer%20of%20Like%20not!fic.mp3) | [m4b](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/A%20Sid_Geno%20Summer%20of%20Like%20not!fic.m4b) (Right-click, select 'save as')

Okay so in my head, Trina makes Sid go abroad a week after the draft. She book a hostel for him and everything because she knows her son, right, and if she doesn’t do this he will spend his entire youth in freezing rinks or in locker rooms or like, running laps - I don’t know what hockey players do in the off season or between the draft and going to the majors but, you know, that. 

Sid’s dad is like *shrug* but Sid’s mom is like “No! This is important! He’s not going to college! He needs to have at least SOME youthful experiences so, this.” Troy is like “Uhhhhhh," because Amsterdam? Really? "All that’s there are drugs, babe, drugs, canals, and the Anne Frank house.” 

She’s like *handwave* “He’s young. Let him have fun. If he gets where he wants to be on the draft its a victory gift and if he doesn’t its a condolence gift,” and as she is the master of the house, keeper of the zoo, etcetera Sid’s in Amsterdam before being a Penguin even feels real with strict instructions from his mother “Keep the focus of your life off hockey and yes, Sidney, I will know.” 

He of course doesn’t doubt her because she his mom and he’s 18 and therefore her mom powers still scare him. So he obeys and it’s not hard because his roommate is a Russian guy because, okay like, in my experience Russian guys in this day and age seem to have a tendency to tend to pick up there shit between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five and just go wandering around Europe. At least that’s how it seemed to me because in all the hostels I’ve stayed at, there was always at least one single Russian guy in that age group who was just “traveling.” Sometimes more, but always one. 

Anyway, the one at this part particular hostel sharing this particular room with Sid this particular summer in Amsterdam 2005 calls himself Zhenya and introduces himself with a big smile and an overly personal hug. His English is choppy but he takes to Sid instantly because, well, Sid has no idea why. He’s never been liked by someone outside his team. It’s weirdly easy with Zhenya though - maybe cause of the language fail or the foreign country or because, you know, the fact that there’s legal drugs in every coffee shop.

Geno’s in Amsterdam on his own choice because, well he’s been pressured into a contract with the KHL he doesn’t want and he just doesn’t want to deal. His mother’s idea was that he pull off some grand act of social justice and use the Olympics in Salt Lake as a place to defect but the team for 06’s already been made and he’s not on it and Alexander Ovechkin said “Fuck the man. Just don’t play,” but Sasha was a drama queen and Geno learned the hard way about taking his advice. So Geno figured this was a happy medium. 

He’d take the off season well and truly off - leave the country for a few months, unwind. Then he’d come back to face his fate like a man when training camp started. He explained all this to his coach who patted him on the arm and said it sounded like a good idea. He just didn’t mention that he wasn’t stopping in Munich, he was going on to the Netherlands. His original plan upon arrival was to just get stoned off his face for a couple months - pretend it wasn’t happening - and then go home after a hard reboot. He’s only gotten to smoke the occasional joint here and there since he turned fourteen because he wanted to stay on the team. He couldn’t even get too drunk that often. This summer is his time to let loose right? Get fucked, get fucked up, make terrible decisions that feel good rather than awful. 

Only then there is Sidney. He is awkward and adorable and doesn’t really know what to do with his hands or his feet or his face. It’s the kind of unconscious vulnerability that can’t be taught and has always gotten Geno’s attraction. He’s genuine and he doesn’t want anything from Geno but for him to be Zhenya with him.

So that they fall into bed with each other is not unexpected. That they fall for each other, like in love, with actual fucking feelings that has Sidney awake at three in the morning so that he can look at Zhenya sleeping is a slap in the face for them both. He doesn’t want to blink or sleep because there’s a ticking clock counting down seconds until he goes back to the US and Zhenya goes on to Croatia or Spain or Germany or back Russia and he’ll miss something. He prides himself on preparation and he doesn’t want to miss something. He’s desperate and Zhenya is too and it elevates the whole thing, sends them clawing at each other in bed, keeps their hands laced together when they go out into the sunshine to explore city. 

Then Sid’s got to leave and that’s it. He goes back home to get ready to join the Pens and a few days later Geno goes back to Russia because a contract is a fucking contract even if he hates it. They spend their last day locked in their room at the hostel, making love with laced fingers, dragging mouthes, and shared breaths. 

The sheets are disgusting. Geno says I love you but he says it in Russian because he can’t bear to say it in English when they’re cutting this off cold turkey. Sid doesn’t say it at all. He just asks for harder, deeper, more, “Pozhaluysta Zhenya, pozhaluysta” because ‘please’ is one of the few words that Sid’s managed to learn and it makes Geno dig in with his teeth and his thumbs and leave marks that will stay with him when he gets back. 

And hey, neither of them cry until they’re well out of ear and eyeshot of each other and that’s good. Right? Yep. Totally right. Even if Sidney realizes about five minutes after take off from his flight from Amsterdam to his first layover at Gatwick that not getting even an email address - let alone a last name, a phone number - was the biggest mistake of his short life. Sid’s cab hasn’t even turned the corner away from the hostel before Geno wishes he’d had the stones to push.

When he gets back to Russia to play for a team he doesn’t want to be on for a league he doesn’t want to be with, he watches a lot of NHL hockey on the internet, mostly the Pens. Thats where he's supposed to be. He can feel it in his bones and his mother always told him to trust his instincts so, he does. He's trying but he also has a contract so. Fuck. And then a camera cuts to the bench and the center takes off his helmet and its Sid - Sidney Crosby the announcer says - and Geno fucking knows that he needs to get there. He knows it.

Only the deal in this verse is that Geno actually lives up to his contract with the KHL so like like 2/3 years pass, he does his time and, well, Sid is a weird little robot isn’t he. So he hasn’t been with anyone since Zhenya. And he only knows his summer guy as Zhenya because thats how he introduced himself. No reason to make any connections to THE Evgeni Malkin because Sidney watches HOCKEY he doesn’t watch the interviews because they’re all in Russian and Sergei would just tell him all the good stuff later anyone. So. He knows this guy, who he’s only really seen with a helmet on, is supposed to be on their team and plays like a God but is stuck in Siberia but that’s about it. 

So, like, instead of the whole forced-contract escape - here the KHL has some sort of back-door contract extension. Totally plausible. Contracts are tricky, lawyers can be bastards, and if they mentally battered Geno into signing in the first place, fuck those guys; they’re totally capable of anything. The escape this time is because Geno is ALMOST DONE and he can go to Penguins for the 2007-2008 season when “What the fuck do you mean my contract’s been extended through the Vancouver games?” Fury doesn’t even scratch the surface of Geno’s feelings on the situation. 

He’s loud about it to his family and one or two of his closer friends. He knows his friends don’t rat him out but someone has to over hear. Has to because he goes to training camp only they've sort of confiscated his passport. 

So he's stuck in fucking Finland. Oops? At which point his daring escape happens like he’s freaking defecting, circa 1965. It’s some iron curtain shit, seriously. Over HOCKEY, which Geno lives and loves but there’s a line and that’s way over it. 

Anyway, so he escapes from the KHL via Finland because just try and beat the Fins, Russia. Seriously. Try it. Have you seen the casualty numbers from the Winter War? Because Geno has and he's like, a super proud Russian and everything, but history was one of the only interesting subjects in school and the fact that anyone could hold off the Soviet army at anything? That’s super impressive to him. So, escaping though Finland besides being convenient also makes sense to Geno as they actually have a tendency to hold out against Russia where most nations cant. 

So yay Finland. You have a pretty flag, a terrifyingly difficult language, and your people are terrifying, snow-monster warriors. Go you! :D

Geno spends a lot of time waiting for his visa and passport on the phone with his parents and also Sasha because he's one of the few people in America whose number Geno has that he knows. Even if he is, well, Sasha. He pokes and prods and is a general asshole until Geno just pours the entire thing out. He's exhausted and he's been sleeping on a shitty couch and he's scared and tired and he doesn’t want his parents to hear any of that. He tells him how bad he wants it too because, well, he needs to remind himself.

Sasha is Sasha. So he is obnoxious and ridiculous but he listens when he needs to because he's a very good friend even if he is a twat. "You're going to be fine. Just enjoy the weather."  
    
"Very funny Sasha."

“What? You're enjoying one of the three weeks of sunshine Finland gets every year! Make the most of it. Find someone pretty, buy them an ice cream, and make out in a park. I'll pay you back for the ice cream if you text me pictures."

Then when Geno doesn’t say anything Sasha gasps and goes "There's someone. Who? Where? Details. Tell me all." And Geno does, at least the relevant things about Sid being on the team and the short version of the summer of '05, *despite* his better judgement. Sasha is a gossip but he's not a Penguin and he knows where the line is at least.  
   
And then he's got his passport and visa and ticket and then he's in the air and he's happy to be on his way to America, to his team, but his brain keeps humming _Sid_. He doesn't sleep so much as remember with his eyes closed. He remembers them in a cafe in Amsterdam, one of so many like it, watching Sid's eyes cross as he tries to take a hit off a bong for the first time. He coughed and choked and laughed and said "Sorry. God, sorry. I've never done this before."  
    
"Is obvious.”

”Well, teams and clubs all do random drug tests where I grew up. I couldn't risk it." Sid said and he tried again and coughed more before handing it over with a dazed expression.

”Not risk now," Geno had promised after he took his own turn and set the bong down on a near by table. "Here is legal, safe. Okay." He'd reached out and pushed the bangs of Sid's forehead and smiled at him. Sid smiled back. "Is okay, Sid."

Sid had leaned into the touch and sighed, "Okay, Zhenya” then burst into high pitched giggles. They didn’t kiss then. They were high and Geno didn't want them to make that choice compromised. 

Instead they fell together into one of the narrow beds in the double room they shared at the hostel. The kiss happened in the morning when Geno woke up and found Sid staring at him.

"What?” 

"This is nice, Zhenya," Sid said on a yawn. Geno had to kiss him, he had to. Then it was like puzzle pieces clicking into place inside Geno's chest because that had been right. Sid had been right. For him. 

Nothing's been right since they left Amsterdam and went their separate ways. He thought it was bad with the contract and the KHL and everything but with the Sid-shaped hole on top of it - well, it was the last straw wasn't it because he makes it to Pittsburgh.

Then he gets dragged to Mario's house from the airport in a mad rush, even though all he wants is to sleep forever. There's Mario's whole family and Sergei and- and- And then there's Sidney and Geno is not fucking prepared. He's just not.

Now for Sid none of this is really relevant except for that very last part. You know, the part where fucking Evgeni fucking Malkin arrives at Mario’s house his first night in America? Yeah. 

Sid sees him and nearly has a goddamn PANIC ATTACK. He says NOTHING when Mario tries to introduce them - just stares for like five seconds, waves weakly like some kind of idiot, then turns around and walks out of the room. He keeps walking with his back perfectly straight until he’s in his room with the door closed and locked. 

He does this very very fucking quietly because he doesn’t want Mario or Sergei to notice that he's freaking out. He's freaking out because it's been years and Sidney hasn't been with anyone since Zhenya. He hasn't even tried because what he had for those few months was better than anything has ever been in his life, even hockey. How on earth was he supposed to look for something better than that when he was training all the time, playing all the time, when the standard was so high and thinking about feeling that way about anyone else made his stomach roll with the same sort of nausea that comes with a bad blow to the back of the head.

So he just hadn't because, well, hockey. There had been hockey before Zhenya and there was hockey after him and it was so fucking good. It wasn't better than sex with Zhenya but it was better than even thinking about sex with other people so yeah, hockey. His first great love. She's kept him pretty happy for in the years since the draft. Really, she has. She's made him millions of dollars, she's taken him to the NHL, taken him across the country, and allowed him to actually ENJOY his career so much that he looks forward to going to work in the morning where most people dread it. Hockey is his beloved and she's not supposed to turn into a traitorous bitch who drops the other great love of his life on his fucking door step after more than more than two years of radio silence without any warning. 

So there's Sidney, all curled up against his door with his legs against his chest and his eyes pressed against his knees which are wet now because he's fucking crying because seriously, how do you get Zhenya from Evgeni anyway? It makes no fucking sense. There's no Z sound in Evgeni. Goddamn Russian and its stupid Cyrillic alphabet. He sort of hates life and the whole fucking world right now. And also he wants to go out and like, press his face into the side of Zhenya's-Evgeni's neck like he did that summer because he's still so tall. They'd still fit, Sid knows they would which makes him just want to die inside it really does. 

Meanwhile, on the outside of the door, everyone is like, uh, what the fuck was that? Because Sid may be a robot but that was weird even for Sid especially since Mario and Sergei both know that Sid was excited to meet Evgeni. Sidney is always excited to meet other hockey players who are awesome. This is a fact of life, like the pull of the tides and the rising and setting sun. It just is. 

HOWEVER! Right now Sid just…Can. Not. So fuck it. He won’t. He maybe twenty-one and the captain of an NHL team but he can be pathetic if he wants to. It his God given right as a Canadian. He’s sure of it. 

Meanwhile outside The Canadian Bedroom Of Traumatized Hiding - Geno is jet-lagged to hell and back. He totally planned to see Sid - at practice. Or once he got his number from Sergei or Mario or…whoever. But looking, feeling and smelling like six shades of shit? Not the way he planned this to happen especially not with Sid looking so damn perfect and also totally horrified.

Then he’s gone before Geno even has a chance to say his name. He's so tired his bones ache and his reflexes are shot so he doesn't even move before a door is clicking shit down the hallway.

“Right," Sergei says, in Russian. He looks at Geno, then at the empty hallway, then back at him. "Because that wasn't weird or anything Zhenya."

Geno shrugs and doesn’t answer and Mario ushers them out of the entryway and his wife smoothes everything over as best she can with food and then a soft bed in a guest bedroom because "You look exhausted, you poor thing."

He is. He knows if he lies down he'd sleep but he's afraid that if he sleeps he wont see Sidney until they're on the ice and he can't have that. So he waits until its quiet and goes to Sidney's room and knocks on the door.

"Sid, is Zhenya." He says and then feels incredibly stupid. Of course he already knows that. "Sidney?”

”Yeah?"  
    
"Sidney, open door?”

”I’m good." Sid says.  
    
"Please?"

Sidney doesn’t say anything because he is stupid and has been in love with a guy he spent a little over two months with, a forever ago. He is stupid and he doesn’t need to look at Zhenya's face to be reminded that he is a complete moron in all things that aren’t hockey.

"Want to see you." Geno says then drops his forehead against the door with a soft thump. "I thought- Practice. See you then but this…better. Sid. Want to see. Only that." His voice is raw because he's so tired, so worn, so thinned out by the last few days and by how badly he wants Sid, how much he's missed him. "Please."

There’s no answer so Geno just settles down against the door. He yawns and closes his eyes. He’s dreaming before he knows what he’s doing, back in Amsterdam at the Van Gough museum with Sid.

They’d been fucking around for three weeks and it didn’t matter that Sid didn’t get art. They went anyway and Geno tucked Sid under his arm or pulled him back against his chest as they looked at swirls of paint that spoke more than most words in either of their languages. 

They’d ended up making out in front of the Sunflowers painting. In his dream, he’s here, in this hallway with Sid and the room is full of those painted flowers. It’s nice until the door opens and he falls on his face. 

“Oh, shit, sorry. I’m so sorry, Zhenya. Are you okay?”

He lands hard but not so hard it busts his nose. It’s nothing he cant bounce back from. He rolls onto his back and then Sidney’s hands are there, pulling him to sit up. 

“Sidney?” Geno says, reaching back to catch him by the shoulders. He’s strong, solid, and warm. He squeezes once, his skin still feels the same under Geno’s hand - an invitation to be touched. 

“Um, yeah. Hi. I’m really sorry about the door thing. I didn’t hurt you or anything right?”

“Okay. Everything okay.” Geno is smiling like an idiot. “Hello, Sidney.” He cannot stop smiling because there’s Sidney’s face, right there, right in front of him when all he’s had for years are crappy cell phone pictures hoarded like dragon gold. This is better than any treasure though because Sidney is the only thing Geno wants more than the NHL. “I see you, yes?” He reaches up and moves Sidney’s fringe off his forehead, just like had that first night in the cafe when they were both stoned and happy. Sidney leans into it now same as he did then. “Look beautiful.”

“I think you picked the wrong word.” Sidney offers with a shy smile. “English, I mean, its a hard language so, do you wanna try again?”

Geno shakes his head. “No. Is right word.” He drags his hand down from Sid’s brow to trace his cheekbone with his thumb. “Missed beautiful Sidney.” 

“It’s been ages,” Sid whispers and he sounds shattered. Geno hates that. He wants to pick up all the pieces, put the together and find out about now-Sidney, how they connect to the then-Sidney who lived in his head when he played out his KHL contract.

“So not miss me?”

“Shut up,” Sidney chokes. “God just shut up I didnt say that. This is just- its fucked up. We were together for two months more than two years ago Zhenya.”

“Yes.” Geno agrees. “And?”

Anyway Sid’s dying in that moment because hello, love of his admittedly short life showing up and calling him beautiful and touching his face looking at him with that _look_ that literally brought him to his knees back in Amesterdam and what is he supposed to do here honestly? He’s not good with people or feelings or any human interaction that isn’t his family or his team so this is all not okay. 

It is not fair at all, really its totally unfair to spring on Sid because he’s not a fragile flower or anything but Zhenya-Evgeni-Geno as Mario and his family is already calling him- he *wrecked* Sidney. He really did, is the thing. Loving him ruined him for anyone else and how fucking stupid is that? To be ruined for anyone else at eighteen then to be twenty-one and to have been pretty much celibate ever since? So stupid. 

Especially since all he wants right now is to climb into Zhenya’s lap and pick up exactly where they left off before Sidney checked out of their hostel and flew back to Canada. Because this man will always be that smiling kid in their hostel room back in ’05. The guy with the dopey smile who checked in fifteen minutes before Sid. He’d been less than a week off the NHL draft, still a little high from being first pick, very jet-lagged, and there was this extremely tall, extremely dorky guy unpacking his bag on one of the two bags who had grinned at his arrive and declared in terribly choppy English “Nice to meet. We roommates yes? I from Russia, am Zhenya” to him. So no matter what other people end up call him, Zhenya is always who he will be in Sid’s head.

Unfortunately, always doesn’t exist for much of anything else in life. That’s the problem. Sid’s brutally realistic about this and that is why he’d never asked for Zhenya’s last name in all the time they were together despite those aching regrets. They went in with an expiration date and he wasn’t foolish enough to think otherwise. That point still stood because well…

“Things change.” 

Then Zhenya’s got his hand other hand on Sidney’s chest and he says, “No, Sidney. Try but no change.”

“Sorry,” Sid says on a choked laugh. He shakes his head at himself. “Sorry. I keep saying that but I’m not- Fuck.” Sid drags a hand through his hair but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t want to. He’s been missing this for so long he doesn’t even remember what it’s like to have it. “I didn’t mean to be rude and everything. It’s just that this isn’t how I thought I’d be meeting you, Evgeni Malkin.”

“Zhenya,” he corrects. 

“You told Mario that we should call you Geno.”

“When you talk, say Zhenya. Yes? Like before. Your Zhenya,” Sid watches his eyes go soft, thinking about before, about mornings by the canals or maybe that one night stayed in and they tried magic mushrooms. They listened to everything on Sid’s iTunes on shuffle because Sid could taste the music, hear colors, and see the way every movement the man before him made impacted the entire universe as he licked every inch of Sid’s skin. He’d only paused to whisper to Sid in Russian words that, at the time, had made perfect sense to both of them.

Before was a paradox, both huge and small. Sometimes Sid felt like he shoved a whole lifetime into those two months. And now his future teammate sat in front of him on the floor, looking at him like they could have that world back and the life on the ice they love besides. 

Sid can’t help but frown. It’s probably a reaction to that twisting feeling in his chest, so tight he can barely breathe. Things don’t just work out. 

“It’s been years,” he protests because he is a vicious realist, prides himself on his ability to assess a situation and doing what needs to be done. The situation here is that this is crazy. “We’re different people. We’re going to be teammates. I mean, you may not want-” _me_ Sid thinks because thats always been a nightmare, that he would find Zhenya and be too different, the strange alien creature that no one could connect to - not even the boy who’d loved him. “You know.”

Geno shakes his head because no, he doesn’t know. Too much, English too fast, none of it makes sense but he gets the gist. He can see it on Sid’s face - the fear and desire and memories and the hollow space where he’ll fit that mirror’s Geno’s own. “No. If you want, I want. Am your Zhenya. Always your Zhenya, Sidney.” He presses on Sid’s chest again, gentle but firm. “If you want,” he repeats. 

“We’re supposed to be teammates.”

“Da, is good! After Amsterdam, Pens play and see you and…” 

Words fail him in English. He doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain that his heart didn’t just skip a beat. It stopped completely then tried to claw it’s way out of his chest. He thought about getting Sid’s number a hundred times over the past 2 years but he couldn’t explain it to Mario, to Sasha, to anyone because, there would be questions on both sides. 

What if Sid had let them go? What if he had someone else back in Canada or in Pittsburgh? Even more importantly, what if Sid wasn’t out? It was not, never would be, his place to decide something like that for someone else. Least of all someone he loved. So he bided his time and practiced his English and marked off days on calendars and played the best hockey he could. 

He tries again because he is a persistent bastard. It’s good on the ice and it’s good in life. “I see you face on NHL I think - first I come for you, then for Penguins. Best thing all of time. Waited for contract then…” He drops off because he’s not sure how to explain the shit they pulled on him back home in English. “No more waiting for Sidney or Penguins. But first Sidney.”

“You cannot say shit like that to me, Zhenya. It’s not fair.”

Geno tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because it makes me want to do stupid shit like this,” Sid says, leaning forward and pressing their lips together. He grabs the back of Geno’s neck and pulls him in hard, making their teeth click together with too much lips and not enough tongue. They don’t care. It’s been years. Years that melt away when Geno actually whimpers because under the toothpaste and old food taste the taste is still *Sidney* which was a haze of barely there sense memory that is flooding back. It’s just as good. Better for the deprivation. 

Sid shoves forward, climbing into his lap because after the first few awkward times, he has been nothing but commanding. Captain, Geno thinks. This man is going to be his captain and considering that he followed him around the world across three continents, following him on the ice will be nothing by comparison.

They break to breathe, pressing their foreheads tight together. “Zhenya,” Sid pants. His fingers toy with the hair at Geno’s nape which is longer than it had been in Amsterdam. “Oh god, _Zhenya_ ,” he says again hoping that ‘I missed you’ comes through in the way Sid says his name. “You’re here. I can’t believe you’re, I don’t know, you.” He swallows his pride and presses another soft kiss to Geno’s lips before he whispers. “I’m glad you found me, Zhenya. My Zhenya.” He says, finally accepting the countless repetitions of the offer Geno has made tonight. 

It settles his skin and keys him up all at once. He wraps both of his long, thick arms around Sid’s back and squeezes tightly. “Stay this time.” Geno growls. He hugs so tightly that his arms shake and Sid hugs back just as strong and close. It’s pointless to ignore the desperate relief in the embrace. “We stay both now, Sidney. Yes?” 

And of course, because this is a love story, because there’s no other answer for them, because some things are more important than hockey, even for Sidney Crosby, he says “Yes.”

(The end)


End file.
